ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 7/17/2004 10:09 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: smartace11@

My origninal question was mainly
about whether different run in headings between flights would have avoided
some
aimed AAA and possibly flack concentrations

More than likely. But medium bomber loss rates in Europe, especially as the
war progressed, were reasonably low. Ovrall, in the MTO, the B-26 loss rate
was one per 148 combat sorties and in the ETO one per 210 sorties. The B-25
loss rate in the MTO was one per 164 sorties, and in the Pacific one per 52
sorties.
Both the B-17 and B-24 in the ETO had loss rates of about one per 62 sorties.
Of course, these general figures hide some interesting details. For example.

The B-26 loss per sortie rate in the early days against the Japanese (attacks
against Lae, Salamaua and Rabaul) was one per 24 sorties and for B-25s one
per
19. During the first year of MTO operations (June 42-June 43, the North
African phase) the loss rate for B-26s was one per 20 sorties, for the B-25
one
per 43 sorties.
In general, in whatever theater, low-level missions were killers. In the MTO
and the ETO, the medium groups largely abandoned these tactics except for
specific needs, while in the Pacific they used them extensively throughout
the
war.


Chris Mark


The B-26's were unsuited to low level operations and were not used down on the
deck.

As Chris points out, both the B-25 and B-26 were so used, in the PTO, MTO, and ETO
(not the B-25), in the early stages. High loss rates led to the move to medium
altitude in every theater other than the PTO, where Japanese flak was less.

The B-25's were fine on the deck and were used there. All B-25's were
pulled from the ETO and moved to the MTO and Pacific which accounts for the
numbers you quote.

No B-25s were "pulled" from the ETO. There were a couple of Groups temporarily
deployed there while waiting to fly on to North Africa. It had originally been
planned to have two Bomb Wings of B-25s and B-26s in the ETO, the 4th and 5th
(later Air Division then Bomb Division) , but it seems the B-25's better
suitability for operating in theaters with poorer runways and logistic support
than the B-26 was happy with, led to a decision to use the B-25 everywhere other
than the ETO, with the B-26 pulled from the PTO.

I need to get down to Maxwell one of these years and do a search to find when the
decision was made as to theater allocation, and by whom. The decision to use the
B-26 exclusively in the ETO was probably made in early or more likely mid 1943.
In April 1943 the 5th Wing/Air Division was eliminated owing to Group diversions
to the 12th AF in the MTO, and its bases were reallocated to the 1st and 4th
BW/AD. Then the 4th BW/AD was supposed to get the mediums and lights, but flow
charts showed that most of the groups scheduled to deploy in the spring of '43
were equipped with B-17s. At the same time, the 3rd Wing/AD was expecting to get
a number of B-25 and B-26 Groups shortly. Sometime around May/early June, with
the failure of the first B-26 low-altitude raids and the change to medium
altitude, it was also decided to swap the bases of the medium and heavy groups of
the 3rd and 4th Air Divisions, so that the mediums would be closer to targets in
France, while the heavies could take advantage of the generally higher state of
completion of the 3rd AD airfields. (Details from one of Freeman's "The Mighty
Eighth" series books, either the first one or the technical manual; I made xeroxes
but didn't label it).

The B-25 was used exclusively in the CBI and ultimately in the PTO, both were used
in the MTO (where as Chris' data shows the B-25 had a lower loss rate than the
B-26, flying the same missions), and the B-26 was used exclusively in the ETO. I
suspect that the location of the production plants may have also played a part in
theater allocations. While both North American (Kansas City) and Martin (Omaha)
had plants in the middle of the country, the main factories were on the west
(Inglewood) and east (Baltimore) coasts respectively. Martin had to turn the
Omaha plant over to B-29 production starting in mid-43 or so, leaving only the
Baltimore plant producing B-26s.

Guy